© 1998 by Mary Lou Seymour and Claire Wolfe. This is a work in progress. You may download it for your own use, but it is not yet for circulation. We welcome any comments, corrections or additions you care to offer.

Many people think that gardening for food is as simple as throwing a few seeds in the dirt and watering them occasionally - and, magically, vegetables and fruits appear to grace their tables. This is a nice, casual approach - but for any family or group who utilize their garden to survive, it is inherently dangerous. Gardening in this sense could prove fatal, as crops that fail cannot be canned, processed, nor eaten. In areas with severe winters, vegetable and fruit supplies can only be grown in the warm months - yet the produce must last throughout the year.

There are Master Gardener programs in most states; these are useful to learn the basics of soil testing, plant physiology, and local growth patterns, if you don't already know them. However, there are ways around these classes. Remember, too, that many food items that are available currently may not be in the future - simply because many, if not most, plants and seeds sold in your local store or feed and seed are hybrids, designed specifically to be more resistant to disease, more prolific, or bigger, better, and brighter.For this reason, it is highly desireable for the Gulch gardener to purchase "Heirloom" seeds. Heirloom seeds are less resistant to bugs and diseases, but can be proliferated by the Gulch gardener from the fruit of the plant. Hybrids cannot. Seeds retained from a Hybrid are not usually productive; if they germinate at all, they will revert back to their parent origins and usually produce smaller, sometimes inedible fruit.

Casual gardening experience cannot be mistaken for the real, backbreaking, ongoing, yearlong efforts of the productive food gardener. Farming - as many people have discovered, to their loss - is not simple, is not easy, is not fun. It is a way to survive.

Many advancements have been made in the production of farming. A rototiller is a great toy, very helpful, very efficient, as is a tractor, a cultivator - but without the fuel to run these behemoths, the Gulch gardener must plan a productive plot without the use of machines. Plow horses can be considered - but most horses are no longer trained to the plow. Percherons and Clydesdales - the behemoths of farm work - are now merely trained for show. Training a horse to a plow is difficult and involves at least a year or more. The most attractive reason for depending on a plow horse for such labor is that, instead of a noisy, grinding, polluting engine-driven machine that must be fed and simply plows where you send it, you have an animal that, if fed well and properly, offers you fertilizer as well as straight garden rows. You must, however, plan to grow the hay and grain that such an animal or animals require; working animals eat a lot. Also, since plow collars and plowing implements are currently decorations for country kitchens, yards, and eateries; finding the equipment may be difficult. (Ropes and other simple applications may injure your animal.)

I am a strong advocate of cheap - rural auctions, antique and estate sales are sources. Some books such as the Foxfire series can show you how to make your own.

Preparation

The best plot is simple and efficient. It must be planned and laid out long before your seeds are ready to put in the ground. Water is an important consideration; are you willing to walk one hundred - or five hundred - or a thousand - yards, carrying buckets? Separated smaller plots are more efficient; also, since some plants such as tomatoes and cucumbers may require lime while others - such as potatoes - despise it, the plots must be laid out separately.

Irrigation is an important factor. Rainfall is indeterminate; and, with the changes brought about by certain cataclysmic events, such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, heavy snowfalls, and droughts, irrigation must be planned to take full advantage of these events. Advantage? Yes. Raised or terraced (depending on your Gulch's location) beds will aid in runoff of undesirable quantities of water. Windbreaks of trees (indigenous is best - see what trees root deeply and well, provide wide wind protection, and prevent soil erosion in your area) are necessary. Windbreaks will prevent not only wind damage to crops but keep driving, sudden snow, rain and hail from sweeping across your plots. They are very useful in screening your food supply from prying eyes. They will also alter your microclimate in that pine and cedar and other evergreens radiate and reflect warmth, unlike shade or deciduous trees that provide cool spots.

Plots should be rotated; tomatoes planted in the same spot year after year will result in smaller tomatoes and smaller crops every succeeding year. Tubers (potatoes, etc) should especially be rotated; plant root crops in a plot that has not been planted in root crops for two years. Root crops take a heavy roll on soil nutrients as well as require different fertilization; potatoes hate lime while surface plants require it. Know your soil and the demands placed upon it.

Soil and Testing

You can ship soil samples to your local extension service or university to determine the type of soil you have. Soil samples from under your feet, however, may vary from the soil from fifty feet away, depending on where you live and what has been there before. Soil samples are a delightful way to make sure of what you need. However, you may not have that luxury. The old ways are still best. If you pick up your soil in your hands, and it clumps easily, or feels greasy, you have clay soil. If it is gritty, you have sandy soil. Grey, dead soil, swampy, black clay; most all soils can be altered with planning and composting. If the soil on a particular piece of property that you are planning to buy for your gulch is dry, dead, and without compostable products such as bark, leaves, or branches; most importantly, if it has no worms - consider buying elsewhere. It took me five years to compost my yard to the point where worms live freely in the soil. You may not have enough time.

Remember that Miracle-Gro* and other spray-on fertilizers are highly touted for flower and vegetable gardens. Products such as these feed the plant, not the soil. Anything that says systemic affects plants. These products have effective results, but when they are no longer available, what you will have is soil that is malnourished and dead. Plowing broken pieces of trees and other organic leftovers into your soil will encourage and feed microbes that will expand your soil's life. Living soil is soil that has living things in it, not just on top of it. Composting all types of organic material - including plant stalks and leaves - will return the soil to its natural state. Eggshells and bones add calcium and micronutrients that you need. To heck with environmentalists - if you have to burn a tree to make room, plow the ash and burned (small-cut or broken) branches into your soil.

Plantings atop a septic system or near a privy are hazardous; it's the GIGO law in its most basic term. However, there are ways around this as well. Non-edible bulb plants filling in within a fifty-foot radius of these disposals will actually draw unacceptable contaminants out of the waste. My local Health guy told me that sewer water, run through fifty feet of bulb plants, will produce potable water at the end of that fifty feet. This is currently a Clemson University Extension project (your tax dollars at work). Inedible bulb plants such as elephant ears (caladium), canna lilies, and daylilies will not only make your water more acceptable, but provide attractive screening should you require it for your necessary room. Beware of snakes.they like them, too.

Greenhousing

Greenhousing is necessary for the year-round gardener. Long-season gardeners can start fall crops in the greenhouse while the summer crops are still producing. Short-season gardeners can produce freshly-grown crops during snowy winters in a proper greenhouse.

Many expensive greenhouses are on the market, as are cold-frames and other charming devices - some temperature- and moisture-sensitive. These are fun but not necessary for the serious gardener. A piece of garbage-bag plastic laid on the ground, its edges covered with dirt or sticks to keep it from blowing away, is a simple cold-frame in which to start plants. Building a small framework of a greenhouse, with discarded PVC pipe or wood, and then covering it with Vis-Queen or similar clear, light green, or black plastic, can be an acceptable and cheap greenhouse. For ventilation - absolutely necessary - a large door that can be opened during warm days is essential. Hand-operated vents can be installed, too. The huge greenhouses with fans and lighting are great, but a Gro-light won't work in the absence of electricity, nor will those huge ventilation fans.

Cold-frames can be as large or as small as you can build them. They are low flat boxes with hinged, clear or black plastic roofs (or box tops) that can be propped open on warm days to prevent crop burning and wilting. Never put a floor on a greenhouse or a cold-frame; allow natural soil warmth to do your job for you.

In areas with snowfall, snow and ice can be utilized as protectants and insulators; some crops such as collards and kale, once touched by frost, become more tender and sweeter. Know your area's crops - and climate. What does well?

Soil used in greenhouses and cold frames should be dug from the same plot where you plan on planting them. This reduces plant transplant shock. Gulch gardeners cannot afford to be dependent on vermiculite or other designer-potting-soil plots. If a seed won't germinate in that soil - it won't grow there later, either.

Large greenhouse plantings for winter gardeners can be done in anything clean with drainage holes. plastic trash cans laid on their sides, half-barrels (not of treated wood; this can poison your vegetables) - large cheap plastic planters - anything can be utilized. I've even used dog-food bowls for starting seeds! For drainage holes, take a half-penny nail and a mallet or hammer, and pound the nail point through the bottom of the container.in several places, depending on how large your container is. Remember that many aluminum or other metal cans may contain poisons that with frequent watering can leach into your soil and from there into your food. Recycling is second nature to most gardeners - but be careful what you utilize.

Watering systems are currently the rage for both yards and greenhouses; unless you have your own water supply (well, stream, whatever), a pump that is not dependent on electricity or fuel, and a basic understanding of pipe, water pressure (psi - pounds per square inch - if you didn't know that, stop) and layout, plan your system with watering cans and buckets, even rain barrels. Many folks snicker at my 24-foot above-ground swimming pool in my back yard - however, it was 20,000 gallons of sweet and treated water supply for my garden this year during the local drought. This type of arrangement is simply a stopgap - if you don't have the ability to treat and maintain this much water over a period of two years, it can become a liability. Rain barrels and ponds that trap rain and snowfalls in the middle of your field can, with proper care and attention, provide water to crops with less effort. Make sure that any irrigation that you use is able to be operated manually. hoses or piping stuck in a pond or barrel can - with manually-applied suction and utilization of slope - water crops on a trickle system. Otherwise, it's buckets.

Hydroponics is a fun, expensive way to grow vegetables in a clean, nourished, microcontrolled environment. It is also very expensive to initiate for a large family or group. There is no way to tell if the micronutrients - or even the gross nutrients - necessary for the hydro infiltration will be available. Dirt is natural - and available. Composting organic ingredients in soil for soil dissemination is easier, too. If you want to experiment and play, and feel grossly more intelligent than dirt farmers, hydroponics is for you. States such as California also have laws against hydroponic gardening, since many marijuana growers invest in hydroponic equipment. Law enforcement agencies use mailing lists, etc. to track and investigate purchasers of hydroponic equipment.

Bugs

There are as many bugs out there ready to eat your crops as there are hailstones waiting to pierce their leaves. A strong, vital plant in living soil can sustain some bug damage, as well as some disease. Since we cannot know if insecticides will be available, you can make your own. Bugs are another reason to keep separate plots; what infests one plot may not infest another. Bug sprays can be simple - ground mild chiles (the hot ones can kill your plant or burn your hands) mixed with water can be sprayed with a hand-pump sprayer, likewise crushed pennyroyal leaves (also known as fleabane). Pyrethrum daisies can be planted around plots, as can marigolds, to help defend your plants. (See Herbalism). Beer or yeast dissolved in water and placed in small old cans or flat pie plates (on the outside perimeter of your garden; place them inside and you will draw slugs like a magnet) will draw, and drown, slugs. Spray plants just prior to sunset; most bugs are night-active. Remember that herbal remedies are not DDT; they weaken rapidly with exposure to sunlight and air. They also will not stay on your crops to maintain poisons.

The worst bugs are the ones you can't see; the nematodes that infest the roots, and the grubs that eat the roots. Prior to planting your plot - at least a half a year - utilize the 'good' nematodes that are for sale from organic fertilizer companies; the ones that infest and devour the grubs. Since nematodes are self-replenishing - they breed inside their host - one spray will treat for the grubs for awhile. I also utilize organic nematode treatments. There are several nasty comments about these nematodes on the 'Net, but I have never had a problem. Perhaps we are immune.

The best defense is you. If you see one while plowing or picking your crops, pick it off and crush it with your shoe (many bugs that eat our plants, like stink bugs, also harbour smelly and even sometimes stinging fluids in their bodies for their protection; wear gloves).

Encourage 'good' insects -the type that pollinate or eat other insects - by providing a steady flowering garden nearby; usually mixed with herbs. The more they become accustomed to finding flowering plants, the more apt they will be to frequent your garden, providing you with more and bigger vegetables and fruits.

A fresh-water source is necessary, especially at night - bats dine at night, and will eat those nighttime bugs as long as they have access to water. (They love my swimming pool - and don't bother nighttime swimmers.) Everyone is going to think that you are bats anyway.

Birds and Mammals

Birds will eat your seeds, chickens will dig up your crops digging for worms and grubs, armadillos, moles, and other ground-dwellers are attracted to grubby yards and will plow holes through plots, (my armadillo moved out after we treated with nematodes; they are not poisonous to the little fellows but, when the food source is gone, so are they) and deer and all manner of wildlife as well as thieving humans will invade your plots looking for a free meal. How to avoid this?

Dinner on the hoof or paw in most cases. I haven't figured how to process the humans other than compost..., and even then you have to be careful. You don't know where they've been.

Depending on your Gulch's location, however, it may not be possible to shoot invaders. Therefore, fencing - behind the windbreak? In front of it? Razor-wire between the trees? - can be a consideration.

I bribe the deer. I have a pond on the furthest outreach of my property to provide them with water in a line of wooded area. At this pond in the winter I leave a salt lick and some cracked or whole corn. I also plant my garlic and onion on the border property; while some folks claim that wildlife will eat onion and garlic, I have never had a problem. Cats, dogs, and other domestic animals can contest invasion and are a good defense in some cases; however, aggressive encroaching animals are best dispatched quickly to the freezer. My cats eat not only my moles, but my neighbors'.

Attract insect-eating birds by using organic pesticides and by providing a fresh water source and habitat-friendly trees, nest boxes, etc. One family nests every year on my front porch - and I have 17 cats.

Microclimates

Corn loves hot and open, some herbs like damp and not-so-fertile; cool in the afternoon, hot all day - every single square foot of your property has its own microclimate, depending on trees, type and height of soil, even the trees or buildings on your property. If you want golden seal, it grows in damp, leafy/moldy woodlands; you can plant it under some deciduous trees near a water source. If something looks wilted, dry, or sorry, try examining it and determining the cause - and move it while it is young, if you can. Back-door herb gardens are such because most structures protect the herbs - I plant mine between a shop and my house, because I live in a hot climate. You may have to provide more sun - or more shade - or more wind protection. Try to be aware of what requirements each crop has for survival - and plant in the appropriate microclimate.

Snakes and Reptiles

Snakes are actually helpful creatures, as are lizards. Rat snakes do exactly that, they seek out rats. Lizards such as 'skinks' - brown, blue, or black lizards with brightly-colored markings -, chameleons, et cetera - eat bugs. They like water and dark, cool, undisturbed places. We don't kill snakes or lizards unless they are poisonous. Cats will, though. Become familiar with the reptiles indigenous to your area. Alligators are good eatin'. They are hard to kill - they have brains the size of a pea, located just behind their eyes and protected by what appears to be armor. Many golfers have gone looking for their balls in water hazards, and lost a leg to a 'gator. Gators eat cats, dogs, and anything they can get. If you have a 'gator, you have to kill it, find someone to kill it, or leave it alone. Like cockroaches, they will survive.

Preserving Your Food

In humid climates, drying can be difficult. In hot climates, 'storing in a cool place', as is recommended for root crops, can be practically impossible. Where possible, utilize the old fashioned methods - a root cellar dug into a hillside, hanging chiles and green beans on strings in dry areas, etc. Learn how to can. You can can anything as long as you know how - and refrigeration is not a requirement for canned goods. In spite of what the advertisements say, you can use canning lids again - as long as the sealant is not scratched severely. If it holds a seal during the canning process, if it is not damaged upon opening - examine the lid carefully, and try it again.

Books, Magazines, and Reference Materials

I highly recommend to those whom are inexperienced to seek out books that address the different varieties of planting ideas, especially those produced for their zone or area.. Many order books love to explain and picture and educate you; much of their information is free for the asking. Ask. Many agricultural agencies and universities also distribute such information - it is 'free' - in other words, your taxes have already paid for it. You bought it, it's yours.

As mentioned previously, the Foxfire collection contains invaluableinformation, including diagrams, for construction of farm implements.Basically a collection of stories of Appalachia, this collection makes for interesting reading such as old ghost stories and tales of moonshining, but provides a wealth of practical information as well, on all manner of topics including animal husbandry.

[Editor's Note: Order Foxfire and other great books online from The Self Reliance Bookstore]

Organic fertilizer companies and heirloom and herbal seed companies are on the 'Net and in your mailbox. Order an herb from Guerney's, for example, and you will receive several herb-seed catalogs directly.

Feed stores are a great source of local (read -heirloom) seed. Also, if you can become a steady customer, they will help you and tell you the differences, even advise you when they are getting shipments in of seed potatoes, et cetera. Local information is invaluable. They can even tell you who to call to get rid of your alligator, or who does bullet repacking in their home.

Thanks Bea, for an interesting and informative article! Anyone wanting to comment on this article or contribute an article, suggestion etc to The Gulcher's Guide, for publication on the Web now and possible publication in "meatspace" later, contact Mary Lou and Claire at gulch@iname.com. Please read the "fine print" on our index page for well, the "fine print".

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